Dutch Nationals Will Help Decide Dutch and Belgian Teams

This weekend’s Dutch national championships will act not only as one of the final deciders for the team the Netherlands will send to the Olympic Games this August, but it will be the final decider for the Belgian team as well, with all nine of their Olympic contenders competing in Rotterdam.

The Dutch Olympic training squad currently features ten gymnasts going after their five spots, including 2015 worlds team members Lieke and Sanne Wevers, Eythora Thorsdottir, Mara Titarsolej, and Tisha Volleman in addition to 2012 Olympian Céline van Gerner, Vera van Pol, Reina Beltman, Kirsten Polderman, and Noël van Klaveren. These ten will face one more trial on July 9 before things are final, but this weekend’s meet should give us a pretty good indication as to what the team will look like.

Lisa Top, who competed at worlds last year but tore her PCL only weeks ago, is also on the list, though I highly doubt we will expect to see her given the extent of her injury. Others on the list but unlikely to compete include Maartje Ruikes and Isa Maassen. Also missing due to injury is Chantysha Netteb, who suffered another injury this spring shortly after her return to the sport.

On the Belgian side, we’ll see 2016 Olympic Test Event bronze medalists Senna Deriks, Rune Hermans, Axelle Klinckaert, Julie Croket, Laura Waem, Gaelle Mys, and alternate Cindy Vandenhole in competition alongside first-year seniors and European Championships competitors Nina Derwael and Julie Meyers. Any Belgian gymnast who reaches a 56+ in the all-around will automatically make the team, with the final team decided on June 29.

Sherine El Zeiny, who lives and trains in the Netherlands but represents Egypt internationally and is training to compete in her third Olympic Games, will also compete as a guest at this meet.

In the junior division, the Dutch will see five of their six European Championships competitors compete, including Juliette Berens, Marieke van Egmond, Sanna Veerman, and Naomi Visser. Bogusia Rossen will sit out due to injury.

A full list of competitors is below. For more information, please visit our coverage guide.

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8 thoughts on “Dutch Nationals Will Help Decide Dutch and Belgian Teams”

I don’t think I’ve seen simultaneous Nationals for gymnastics before. Kind of makes sense for countries with smaller numbers of gymnasts. Like in figure skating, the Czech/Slovak/Polish/Hungarian Championships have been held together for a while.

Belgian Championships were already held this season for both juniors and seniors, but because the Olympic Test Event team had just returned from Rio, they were allowed to skip it, meaning some weaker gymnasts not in Olympic contention won the titles. They’re basically performing as guests at Dutch Championships, not using this AS Belgian Championships.

I don’t know if I’ve seen joint nationals, but I have seen lots of guest nationals before (i.e. some Swedish gymnasts at Romanian nationals in 2014, some Czech girls at Polish nationals this year, etc). In both cases, these guest countries had their own nationals, but usually when guests come to another country’s nationals, it’s a select few who just need more experience, not a legit “joint” nationals where all national-level gymnasts come together. Like, this weekend’s meet is Dutch Championships with Belgian guests, not a joint Dutch/Belgian nationals, if that makes sense.

They actually already had their trials over the weekend, privately. I know some of the results from this meet but I’m not allowed to publish them. That was their ‘trials’ and then they’re using this meet as a way to kind of confirm that…using it as a kind of friendly meet to give girls one last shot.